Calculating Your Equity
Most beginning poker players concentrate heavily on the concept of pot odds when they first start playing. After all, being able to calculate pot odds is very useful in helping you to determine whether or not to make a call. However, using pot odds will only get you so far on the poker table so it is also important to know what your equity is too.
Like pot odds, equity is a rather easy concept to grasp since it’s just the chances that you have to make your hand by the river. Here is a look at how to calculate equity.
Count Outs
The first thing you need to do to find your equity is calculate your outs. This is very easy since outs are merely the cards left in the deck that will make your hand. For instance, on an open-ended straight draw, you would have 8 outs; an example would be if you held 4-5-6-7, and there are four 3’s in the deck and four 8’s.
Calculate your Equity
To calculate equity, you just multiply your outs on the flop by 4, and your outs on the turn by 2. In the open-ended straight draw, you’d calculate equity on the flop like this:
8 outs X 4 = 32% equity.
On the flop, you have a 32% chance of making your hand by the river.
Using Equity
The next step is using equity along with pot odds to see if you will be making money in the long run with a call. And you’ll know to make a call if your equity is higher than your pot odds. For instance, if you have 9 outs on the turn with a flush draw, your equity would be 18% (9 outs X 2). With pot odds of 16%, you’d definitely want to call with an 18% equity.